Classic SF - Novellas Trivia Quiz

Answer: First Contact

Murray Leinster wrote this one for John W Campbell's "Astounding" - it was first published in May of 1945. The human half of the team who came up with the solution to the problem figures the two races will end up getting along well - he and his alien opposite number spent most of their time together trading dirty jokes.

Leinster was a pioneer of Science Fiction - his first SF story, "The Runaway Skyscraper", was published in 1919. He was a frequent contributor to the early pulps, such as "Astounding Stories" and "Amazing Stories". He is considered to be the inventor of the "parallel universe" story.

Answer: Robert A. Heinlein

Harriman (a typical Heinlein hero if there ever was one) doesn't get to the moon in this story, but in 1940's "Requiem" he appears as an old man who clambers past all opposition to make it to the moon, only to die upon landing.

Heinlein is considered by many to be the towering figure of SF's Golden Age. He was a non-conformist all the way to his toenails, combining what appear to be ultra right-wing politics with a sometimes startling social liberalism. He died in 1988.

Answer: A present-day alcoholic doctor finds a medical kit from the future.

Down-on-his-luck Dr. Full finds a foolproof medical bag, sent from the future. It revitalizes his career, but when his unscrupulous assistant has other plans for the bag, things take a turn for the worse. This story was filmed for television several times, in 1952 ("Tales of Tomorrow"), 1969 ("Out of the Unknown") and 1970 ("Night Gallery"). It's connected, through the future the bag comes from, with Kornbluth's famous story "The Marching Morons".

A noted eccentric, Kornbluth died young, at the age of 34, in 1958.

Answer: Weyr Search

"Weyr Search" and "Dragonrider" were combined to become "Dragonflight", the first book in Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series. Riders and dragons bond telepathically to fight "Thread", which menaces their planet whenever the Red Star passes close enough.

I first came upon this story in an old copy of "Analog" from the used bookstore, in the mid seventies. It's a very powerful story, and I didn't lose any time tracking down the rest of the books in the series. As the series has progressed, it's become a little too 'cozy' for my taste, but that first book is still a pageturner.

Anne McCaffrey is also the author of the "Crystal Singer" series, the "Dinosaur Planet" series, the "Doona" series, and several others, as well as some stand alone novels.

Answer: With Folded Hands

The "folded hands" of the title refer to those of all humans, as every task is taken over by the Humaniods, and humanity loses its purpose.

Jack Williamson was another pioneer of the pulp years, with his first SF sale in 1928, to "Amazing". He continued to write (and win awards) well into his nineties.

Answer: Fritz Leiber

The thieves pair up, recognizing that they are birds of a feather. A raid on the Thieves' Guild goes drastically wrong, and the two set off together for further adventures. You can read more about this very entertaining pair in the several "Swords and..." books that Leiber wrote over the course of many years. The stories, the first of which was published in 1939, established many of the tropes of the sword and sorcery genre; the very term "sword and sorcery" was coined by Leiber. "Dungeons and Dragons" was strongly influenced by them.

There are many legends in the Fantasy world about Leiber's life, especially in his later years. Some say he was a skid row drunk, others that he simply lived quietly on his royalty cheques. At any rate he died in 1992, returning to his home in San Francisco from a SF convention in Canada.

Answer: The Word for World is Forest

Ursula K LeGuin's novella was originally published in Harlan Ellison's "Again, Dangerous Visions" in 1972. It was later expanded into a 1976 novel. LeGuin's opposition to the then-ongoing Vietnam War clearly influenced the story.

Ursula K LeGuin can be considered a member of the "New Wave" in Science Fiction, in the 1960s. Social sciences began to be explored, and authors experimented stylistically. Most of LeGuin's work comes from a more feminist, soft-science perspective than could have existed in the days of the pulps.

Answer: 20th Century astronauts experience a slip in time, to come back to an Earth with no men.

The astronauts gradually realize they have returned to a post-apocalyptic world where there are no men, and humans reproduce by cloning. It's a peaceful place, with lots of houseplants, but not much new technology. I remember that this story created quite a stir when first published in 1976.

James Tiptree (Alice Sheldon) was another highly influential member of the New Wave. The fact that she was a woman was kept secret until 1977, after she had been writing successful SF for ten years. She took her own life and that of her 84 year old husband in 1987.

Answer: Sandkings

This novelette by George R. R. Martin was first published in "Omni" in 1979. When life simulation computer games first became popular, this story came to my mind.

Martin is probably best known now as the author of the multi-volume series, "A Song of Ice and Fire".

Answer: Vintage Season

The town is filling with tourists from the future, here to experience a perfect May, followed by a so-exciting meteor strike, with Oliver's house the grandstand seating.

The husband/wife team of Kuttner and Moore first published this story under the name of "Lawrence O'Donnell"; it is generally believed to be mostly Moore's work. They both had their first short stories appear in the pulp, "Weird Tales".